i> i 




Class PS^fiTO^ 

Book . A ^iltbb 

CoiriglitS?— l-R'^.?'^ 



COPXRIGHT DEPOSm 



Bur?iincT Bush. 



Biinung Bush. 

by 

Y\v. l\arlc IFilson '^aker. 




U^ew Haven: 
Tale University T^ress. 

Jf^onJon : Ifumphres 'S^CUforJ : Oxford Univenity Vrea. 

zJ)CiJccccxxii. 



-pSs 






Copyright y ig2z, by 
Tale University T^ress. 



SEP -5 1922 

©CI.A0S^3269 



To 
Thomas CI lis ^aker 



I AM indebted to the following magazines for permis- 
sion to reprint poems which first appeared in their 
papes: The Yale Rtvictv, the Nation, the Literary Re- 
t'ieic. Harper's, the Delineator, the iarm Journal, Sun- 
set, the Surrey, Holland's, the Texas Revieiu, tlie Book- 
man, Contemporary Terse, the Measure, the Midland. 
a.nd Poetry (Chicago). 



Coritcfits. 





PACE 


Fairy Fires . 


U 


November ...... 


14 


1. Leaves ..... 


14 


2. Overhead Travellers 


14 


3. Grey Days ..... 


14 


4. Acorns ..... 


15 


Stars ....... 


10 


Winter Flowers ..... 


17 


Burning Bush ..... 


18 


Way-song ...... 


19 


Morning Song ..... 


20 


Bees 


21 


Road-wise ...... 


22 


Song 


23 


Storm Song ...... 


24 


Song to the Beat of Wings 


25 


I Love the Friendly Faces of Old Sorrows . 


26 


Prisons ...... 


27 


I Weight My Mind .... 


28 


Pines in the Rain ..... 


29 


The Lord of the Trees .... 


30 


The Four Kings ..... 


31 


The World at the Bottom of the Lake 


32 


Grey ....... 


Zl 


Tree Talk 


34 


I Shall Be Lovctl as Quiet Things 


35 


Alternatives ..... 


36 


The Highwayman .... 


37 


The Marching -Mountains 


38 


The Window ..... 


39 



( 9 1 



To One Who Smiles at My Simplicity 

Answers ..... 

Dogmatic ..... 

New York from the Harbor 

The Old Woman with the Grey Shawl 

Street-ends . 

Sunset Song 

Box-car Letters 

The Hill Steps 

The Elopement 

Temperate Tribute 

Maples In the Fall 

The Greedy Ghost 

Rain and Wind 

Color . 

Mountain-dream . 

A Flock of Birds . 

1. A Bluebird . 

2. Doves . 

3. The Wren 

4. The Wood-thrush, or Bell-bird 

5. The Jay 

6. The Cardinal and His Lady 
Cocoons 

Garrets for Poets . 
Dressmaker . 
Tools 

No Respecter of Persons 
Full Moon before Dark 
The Lord Speaks from the Banks of the Stream 
Three Small Poems 

1. To Get Wisdom 

[ 10 ] 



2. Meekness and PriMe 

3. Courage 
Not in the Whirlwind . 
V^anity 
Songs from a Still Place . 

1. The Wall of Tears 

2. The Plaited Wreatli 

3. Beads . 

4. Peace . 

5. Giving 
b. Free 

Orders 

One Morning in Gyara . 

The Cripple 

Pronouns 

Root and Flower . 

Initiation 

W^intcr Dusk 

Acknowledgment . 

Anniversary in November 

1. Birthday 

2. The Light in the Woods 

3. Migrants 

4. All Saints' Day 
Clear Hour . 

The Housewife: Winter After 
Sky-colors 

1. Blue and Silver 

2. Rose and Grey 

3. Pale Pink and Primrose 

4. Clear Gold . 
Soft Rain 



noon 



PAGE 

69 

69 

70 

71 

72 

72 

72 

72 

73 

73 

74 

75 

76 

78 

79 

80 

81 

82 

83 

84 

84 

84 

85 

85 

86 

87 

88 

88 

88 

88 

89 

90 



II 1 



PAGE 

The Mirrored Bird 91 

If My Breath Is Taken 92 

Labels 93 



[ 12 ] 



Fairy Fires, 



THEY burn on the window-pane 
When the day is soft and late, 
But you think they are out in the cold 
Between the bush and the j^ate. 

Clean through the blaze you look 
At the dear, black, naked trees: 
No beautiful bough is burned 
By hungerless fires like these, 

But no heart is ever warmed, 
And no spirit weds desire. 
And no house is ever home 
That wants for the fairv fire. 



13 



November. 

LEAVES 

MY great trees are stripping themselves, 
Throwing away their gauds, 
Preparing for the winter of their souls. 
But my little cedars 

Are picking up the twisted golden baubles 
And sticking them In their hair. 



OVERHEAD TRAVELLERS 

THERE you go in your breathless wedge, 
Melting across the sky over my house like a clamor- 
ing shadow ! 

My heart leaps, and I flap my wings wildly. 

But I cannot go just yet. 

My fledglings do not grow so fast as yours, 

I must scratch for them longer. 

But some day, we, too, shall take the air-lines — 

My mate and I. 

(Unless, indeed, I shall have found real wings in the 
meantime. 

In that case, it won't matter, 

For I shall go farther than you, then, haughty birds.) 



GREY DAYS 

ON a grey day 
When I am alone, 
My heart glows and blooms 
Like embers among ashes. 

[ 14 



On a prey ilay 

When I am alone. 

llie tent-fires ot nomads, 

And the road-Hres of palmers, 

And the hearth-fires of builders 

Burn in my spirit. 



.-ICORXS 



NOW ami then, all through the da\' and ni<:ht, 
An acorn drops on tfie roof and poes rattling down 
the putter. 
I cannot tell why the sound delights me, 
Or why I have such a pleased and noticed feeling, 
As of a child that shares a joke with its parent, 
When I think of the black old oak 
Stretching his craggy arms over m\ roof-tree 
And dropping his polished pebbles on my house. 



I -5 I 



Stars. 



I AM so small : when I go out 
Beneath the heaven of All Souls, 
And see them twinkling all about 
Who won through to their briary goals ; 
When I look up into the dome 
Their gathered constellations wreathe — 
The Great, the Faithful, trooping home- 
I am so small, I scarcely breathe. 

I am so great — for I am I. 
Not one in all that starry band 
Went just the way I travel by 
To overtake my fatherland. 
Forever seeking mine own Sign, 
Lord of my spirit's lone estate, 
My soul's a heaven where They shine 
A part of me — I am so great. 



[ i6 ] 



JflNtcr Floi^crs. 

AT the door of my kitchen I feed my flowers: 
My pij^cons, the silvery lilies that sweep 
Over the garden the frost has slain, 
Wild as beauty, and soft as sleep. 

My flowers bloom up over chimney and stack, 
Blue smoke-irises, bodiless things, 
Orchids of pearl that I could not reach 
Except that my hunger and thirst have wings. 

And then, when my flowers of light have gone, 
\'anished and gone as a shadow goes, 
I kneel by the hearth in a little house, 
And warm my heart at a burning rose. 



■7 1 



Burning Bush. 



MY heart, complaining like a bird, 
Kept drooping on her weary nest; 
**Oh, take me out under the sky, 
Find me a little rest!" 

I took her out under the sky, 
I climbed a straggling, sandy street, 
Where little weathered houses sag, 
And town and country meet, 

And in the corner of a yard 
Unkempt, forlorn, and winter-browned, 
A single sprig of Burning Bush 
Thrust up from the bare ground. 

It bore no leaf as yet — one flower. 
Three pointed buds of pure rose-flame: 
Up whirred my heart, circled in air, 
Back to my bosom came. 

And that was all I showed to her — 
I could not find another thing — 
But, ''Take me home again," she cried, 
"And I will sing and sing!" 



i8 



JJ^ay-sorig. 



GIVE me your clearest hour 
And let me jjo : 
Days are too garrulous, 
^ ears are too slow. 

Set me a Brownie's feast, 
Cake-crumbs and wine, 
Outside the tavern-door — 
Thus I'd dine. 

llie stars arc so far apart, 
My steps so small, 
I must make haste who would 
Set foot \\\ all. 



t 19 1 



Morning Song. 



THERE'S a mellower light just over the hill, 
And somewhere a yellower daffodil, 
And honey, somewhere, that's sweeter still. 

And some were meant to stay like a stone, 
Knowing the things they have always known, 
Sinking down deeper into their own ; 

But some must follow the wind and me, 
Who like to be starting and like to be free, 
Never so glad as we're going to be ! 



[ 20] 



Bees. 



FROM some far home I brou^^ht a swarm of bees, 
Old honey-makers hiving in my brain: 
They finil the small, green flowers of the trees, 
And the one poppy idling in the grain; 

The sun is shepherd to my heedless flocks; 

In vain I bid them forage or be still: 

Their drunken wings sing down the solemn clocks 

Fanning the flowers upon some timeless hill. 

No stretch of stony path, nor bitter seas, 
But must yield up some blossom, white or red, 
Some nectar-throated anguish, for my bees — 
I shall have honey, though I starve for bread. 



Road-wise. 

THEY told me to save my pennies, 
But I scorned to be prudent and wise, 
And I poured them out by the lapful 
To please the old Gypsy's eyes ; 

Yes, even my mother's luck-piece 
I laid in her w^heedling palm, 
To pay for my iron breast-pin 
And my vial of Wayfarer's Balm. 

So you need not flutter your ribbons 
And trinkets before my eyes ; 
I have travelled since that May morning, 
And oh, I am very vi^ise ! 

There's an old, dim shop in a city 
I'll be seeking before I die: 
For I've got just three gold pennies — 
And I knov^^ what I want to buy. 



22 



So//g. 



THE Wind was my mother: 
llic Wind is free. 
Then why am I planted In one same spot 
Like a tree? 

A Hinl was my father: 

A Bird is free! 

No fruit shall they gather but sighs and songs 

From me. 



[ ^3 ] 



Storm Song. 

MY bosom with the beat of wings is troubled as the 
day is falling ; 
Within my bosom hungry birds are circling on the wind 
and calling. 

My breast is blinded by the rain and buffeted by weary 

flying. 
My bosom with the beat of wings is troubled, and with 

bitter crying. 



[ 24 ] 



So^jg to the Beat of livings. 

O PEACE is a white bird, 
And Beauty is a castled cloud, 
And Love is a fierce fire that loves to he made kind ; 



And I have climbed the castled cloud, 

And I have caped the fierce fire. 

But the white bird, the white bird — her I cannot hind! 



25 



/ Love the Friendly Faces of 
Old Sorrows. 

I LOVE the friendly faces of old Sorrows; 
I have no secrets that they do not know. 
They are so old, I think they have forgotten 
What bitter words were spoken, long ago. 

I hate the cold, stern faces of new Sorrows 
Who stand and watch, and catch me all alone. 
I should be braver if I could remember 
How different the older ones have grown. 



[ 26 ] 



Pr 



isons 



MASTFRS havi" wrou^lit in prisons, 
At pence in crlls of stone: 
From their thick walls I fashion 
AVimiows to lijzht ni\ own. 



/ Weight My Mind. 

I WEIGHT my mind as best I can to keep it close to 
earth 
With chunky little platitudes and bits of twisted mirth ; 

For dust will gather in the house, and shirts unmended lie 
Unless you learn to keep your mind from gadding in the 
sky. 

As well detain a puff of smoke, or cobweb-bind a bird ! 
Answering to a sudden call some inner ear has heard, 

It circles up from cloud to cloud, joyous, unsatisfied, 
Crying and crying after God — as minds have always 
cried. 



[ 28 ] 



Pines i?i the Riii?i. 

^f^HIS hour that I have loved so was silver and preen 

X and brown — 

A listening hour \x\ the pine-wooils uliere I have learned 

so much. 
Soft through the tuttetl branches the dim rain sifted down, 
Tipping with rayless jewels the low plumes I could touch. 

I wish I couKi write a poem that was tall and straight as 

a pine: 
I wish it could say to someone what the pine-trees say to 

me. 
I think their way of talking would be no better than mine 
If I were as sure and simple and quiet as a tree. 



[ 29 1 



The Lord of the Trees. 



I SAID, "To make It small, 
One question sums them all : 
If You are God and King 
Unchallenged in Your place: 
If You are kindness furled 
In all-power : if You care 
At all, how could You bear 
To make a cruel world ?" 

I asked God to His face, 
"How could You do that thing? 
That answers all the rest." 
God cast His eyes on me, 
Then turned into a tree 
And said, "Come build your nest.' 



30 ] 



lilt Four Ki/iiis. 

o 

ICAMK upon four tall young kinps 
Fillinjr the wood with smiling state, 
Ringed round with dark, furred councillors, 
Great servants of the great. 

"I'hey drew the light from all the sky 
To flood that circle of dark wood : 
I think that grey day was hard-pressed 
To serve their golden mood. 

They did not ask me to come \u, 
They did not notice me, indeed, 
Nor tell me what they plotted there, 
Nor what fire-hearted need 

Had made them turn from hickon-trees 
Whom I had found in friendly talk 
With the tall pines that ringed them round 
On many a summer walk, 

To kings of light intolerable 
(Yet joyous, young, and void of wratli). 
Bright gods — I slipt away and left 
Mv shoes beside the patli. 



31 



The W^orld at the Bottom of 
the Lake. 

THERE is a world that's floored with clouds, 
And hung with tall black trees 
Whose lustrous heads are weighted down 
With plumed mysteries. 

That world where pines grow upside-down, 
And you can see the air, 
Though it is clearer than clear glass — 
I have lost something there. 

I hang above my lifted oar, 
And look, and look, until 
The water-spell has almost caught 
My heart, my dreaming will. 

For very much I'd like to slip 
Down through the rippled floor. 
And dive for something I had once 
And haven't any more. 



[ 32 ] 



Gn 



7- 



UP anions the prey clouds, 
Through the grey rain, 
1 he wild ducks are trailing 
Their wavering chain. 

Frailer than a lace-thread, 
Through the waste of grey. 
Steadily the wraith-chain 
Drags my heart away. 



[ a ] 



Tree Talk. 

SOME days, the pines upon my hills 
Speak nothing of their secret wills, 
But with an absent smile they say, 
"Dear, we can't talk to you today." 

They are like nearest friends in this 
Who leave me hungry with a kiss 
Sometimes: again, with two words said, 
Send me rejoicing, banqueted. 



[ 34 ] 



/ Shcill Be Lozrd as ^aet 



Things. 

I SHALL he lovctl as (luict thin^^'^ 
Arc loved — white pigeons in tlie sun, 
Curled yellow leaves that whisper down 
One atter one ; 

The silver reticence of smoke 
That tells no secret of its hirth 
Anions: the fiery ajronies 
That turn the earth ; 

Cloud-islands; reaching: arms of trees; 
The frayed and ea.^cr little moon 
That strays unheeded through a high 
Blue afternoon. 

The thunder of my heart must go 
Under the muffling of the dust — 
As my grey dress has guarded it 
The grasses must ; 

For it has hammered loud enough. 
Clamored enough, when all is said : 
Only its quiet part shall live 
When I am dead. 



[ 35 1 



Alternatives. 

MY years have limped ; but I 
Have tried so hard to fly ! 
And now, suppose Death brings 
Gulls' wings 
At last, for me to keep ? 

Yet comes he not so soon 
But I know what a boon 
Is — Sleep. 



[ 36 ] 



The HigfrjcciyyyjarL 



HK ruirsfs tlu-rc anionj: his crags 
His hauj^hty schnncs — 
Atul he may snatch my clfin purse 
That's stuffed with dreams; 

Hut I have wealtli he cannot touch, 

Spoiler of kings! 

For I have tasted agony 

And worn joy's wings. 



I 37 1 



The Marching Mountains. 

THE clouds went past me after the rain — 
Mountains, continents, globes — 
And beauty lay on my heart with pain 
Like the weight of jewelled robes. 

And I was glad that I shall not lie 
Forever under the grass, 
Never again to watch the sky 
Where the marching mountains pass. 

And I was glad that I have shed 
The worst of beauty's pain, 
The thought that I shall soon be dead 
Never to look again ; 

That they have no glory to declare, 
That they march to no heavenly town : 
The yoke of beauty is easy to bear 
Since I need not lay it down. 



38 ] 



llic JJ1n(/ouO. 



GOD hanps my slatted caRC, sometimes, 
On skyey balconies of bloom ; 
He lifts my latch, some rainy days, 
And lets me hop about H!n room ; 

But when, at last. He thinks it time 
To tell me what the Others know. 
He'll lift the window toward the hills 
And let me go. 



[ 39 1 



To One Who Smiles at My 
Simplicity. 



IF, as you say, O wise one. 
And as I one time said, 
Life cannot care for persons 
And all the dead are dead. 

Yet, even so, I'll salvage 
Part of the desperate stake: 
I shall not sleep less deeply 
Because I thought to wake. 

No roar of great wings passing 
Above my dusty head 
Shall mock me, if, you winning, 
Your dead world holds me, dead. 



[ 40 ] 



Answers. 



You smile at m\ answer — 
At yours I shake my head 
^'ou live on iron and jewels — 
But I need bread. 

I adore your rubies, 
Admire your dynamo — 
^'ou will not taste my manna: 
'^'es answers more than No. 



[ 4. 



Dogmatic. 



HE whom the trees accept, 
He to whom the great clouds bow In passing, 
He to whom the bluebirds bring the back-door gossip of 

heaven — 
He cannot be agnostic. 
Soon or late, he must say, "I love": 
Who loves, knows. 



[42 ] 



NezJu York f row the Harbor. 

BEJUTY SPEJKS: 

**T N the dark of his heart he iiuittcred, 

X ( Man. my greedy chiKl,) 
'I will build me a black city 
Beside the waters. 
Of slate and iron will I build it. 
And the fierceness of my desire. 
I will build it hi^h 
(That I may outreach m\ brother) 
With many ladders; 
And men in the ships shall look upon it 
To say, It is mighty and fearful.' 

"And I laughed low in my heart and plotted, 

I will build rrw a blue palace 

Out of the waste breath of your striving, 

A blue palace upon a clif?, 

AVith many windows. 

I \Nill deck it with plumy banners; 

And men in the ships shall look upon it 

And say. It is beautiful! 

"And when he was come up by his many ladders, 

He found me waiting bv mv silver windows, 

Me, 

His mother, 

Dreaming." 



43 1 



The Old Woman with the 
Grey ShawL 

<*TTELPA Madre Angelotti, 

XTL Geeva pennee, geeva pennee! 
Geeva, and I pray for you! 
For da kinda ladee, 
An' da younga fellow, 
An'daleetlagirl!" 

Withered Mother Angelotti, 

I'll not buy your prayers with pennies! 

Grin above them in your palm — 

Still they're not the coins you think them ! 

One is silvered, as w^ith tear-shine, 

One is rusty-red, like heart-break, 

One, I own, is light as laughter 

For your ancient, battered shrewdness, 

Wheedling Mother Angelotti — 

Take them for your wrinkled prayers! 

Prayers are things we all have need of, 

Grey old Mother Angelotti — 

The kind lady. 

And the young fellow. 

And the little girl. 



[ 44 ] 



Street-ends. 



I LOVE the ends of streets — 
Those high and narrow dreams 
That slip into men's sight 
For all their blinded walls; 

I love tiie ends of streets — 
Wickets for morning-gleams, 
Last taverns for the light 
When evening falls ; 

I love the ends of streets! 
From those steep stairs, it seems, 
Something looks back, at night, 
And calls, and calls. 



[ 45 ] 



Sunset Song. 



ASHES of roses, where the clouds were burning 
. A breath ago — so swiftly sink the fires. 
Beauty remembered, ashen roses, yearning 
Over the quiet roofs and dreaming spires. 
Beauty to ashes evermore returning, 
Flickering down of wildest old desires — 
Ashes — the deathless Bird of Joy was burning 
A breath ago, upon a thousand pyres. 

Beauty for ashes! Singing with the morning, 
Burns the bright rose of everlasting years ; 
Beauty for ashes — all our travail scorning, 
Young laughter gushes from old rocky fears; 
Beauty for ashes: life for life adorning, 
The Future makes her jewels of our tears. 



[ 46 ] 



BoX'Car Letters, 



ALONE on tlic hill where the sun poes down 
^ I plunder the earth from my little town ; 
Hut the spoils I brin^ \n my fairy sack 
Are scattered and spilled on the railroad track. . . . 
For there, on the siding, the box-cars doze, 
And this is the way their dreaming goes: 

"Sault Sainte-Marie and Chicopee, 

Miami and San Antonio — " 

They call like a lover's song to me, 

Call, and I want to go! 

Santa Fe, Norfolk and Kalamazoo, 

Sacramento. Mobile, Peru — 

How. do >ou think, you could tamely bide 

In the one small spot where your heart was tied, 

When those haughty drudges came creaking through, 

7>aring your anchored heart in two. 

Each with a name on its stolid side 

Two feet tall and ten feet wide. 

That rings like a chime for you? 

The wanderer's day will have one good hour. 
And every roadside one magic flower ; 
They wither and droop if you stay too long, 
The perfume goes like an ended song. 
I would come back to the ways I know, 
But I would not stay when I want to go! 

Wichita, Bangor, and San Jose, 

Ypsilanti and Monterey — 

They flutter my peace like the tang of spray! 

I 47 1 



From high dream-pastures homing down 
To the fold of my heart in the little town, 
I have to wait at the railroad track 
On a trundling train with a snorting stack! 
The engine's a genie, a grimy scamp 
Who turns a philosopher into a tramp. 
Denver, Seattle and Calumet, 
Natchez, New Haven and Laramie — 
Go on with your lumbering lure, and let 
A poor philosopher be ! 



[ 48 



The Hill Steps. 

THERE'S a rtij^ht of steps running clown the hill 
Toward the town that lies in the valley below, 
And down you come in the paling light 
While the roofs are pink with the afterglow. 

And tlierc — from the top of the steps — it lies 
Like the Town of Pearl in the Prince's dream, 
In every chimney a plume of blue, 
In every window a blazing gleam. 

Then, down you come. And, one, two, three, 
Twelve steps, and your foot is on solid land — 
And in less than a minute you'll catch the smell 
Of onions down at the chilli-stand. 



49 



The Elopement. 



THE pine-tree is a man-tree, 
The proudest tree that grows! 
Lifting his solemn head-plume 
Up in the air he goes ; 

His is the staunchest column, 
His is the stiffest leaf ; 
And when he cries, a man's voice 
Groans with a strong man's grief. 

The cedar-tree is a lady ! 
Light as a ship she goes, 
Dipping her feathery rigging. 
Bending to wear the snows, — 

Some night they will be married — 
Something will send for me — 
An owl will hoot in the blue starlight, 
And I'll slip out and see! 



[ so ] 



Temperate Irihute. 

You are a poet, sycamore, 
A minor poet, 
^'ou are not much pood '\\\ a practical world ; 
You shed your rapped leaves early, and clutter up the 

landscape. 
But you arc lovely on winter evenings 
Apainst the aftcrplow — 
Hare and pale and a little disdainful, 
But \ourself. 



Maples in the Fall. 



THE maple-trees are turning — 
Their flames leap ever higher; 
All day my heart is burning 
In the rose-colored fire. 

Like ashes, grey and tarnished, 
My sins are sifting down : 
ril have a heart fire-burnished 
To carry back to town ! 



[ 52 ] 



lljc Greedy Ghost. 

AND I shall walk for love of it 
^ When I'm a j^host that's free of breatli, 
Not to appease a whimpering 
Poor griui^^e at Death ; 



Hut just to see this shining sphere 
Where all my years are pinpoint-tied — 
A fly upon a peach could crawl 



The minarets of cloud can wait 
For one star-twinkle : wait until 
I shall have {za/cd on Motiicr Rome 
From cvcr\ hill, 

And kissed a hand to Greece, and crossed 
A palm-tree's shadow in Algiers — 
And knelt on stones where my great Dead 
Have spilled their tears. 



( 33 1 



Rain and TVind. 

I LOVE the Rain, 
But she is a sad lady — 
She weeps and weeps. 
She is silvery and beautiful, 
But I do not need her ; 
I can find the likes of her, any day, in my heart. 

But oh, it is the Wind I love, 

The wooer with laughter, 

He is my true lover ! 

He snatches away the silvery veil of the sad lady, 

He changes her into a huntress who races with him on 

the mountains, 
He turns the raindrops in her hair into cold jewels, 
And her tears to little birds. 

It is the Wind I love. 

The laughing, racing, starry Wind from the outer spaces, 

He is my true lover ! 



[ 54 ] 



Colt 



or. 



WK bclonp: to the blue scrpe world, 
Kven \w our village. 
Wc have outgrown color as a child outgrows Its toys, 
Reprctfullv. 

Even our lau^hinj;: yellow K'rls, 
Who whiten their smooth cheeks, 
And straighten their black hair, 
Love red like a secret sin ; 
And nearly all of us have learned to smile 
At the green hatbands of Jose and 'Ilario 
Who come to town for whiskey, Saturdays. 
W'e are ven' sober. 

But Heauty outwits us: 

P'or when the Council lays new sewer-pipes, 

And tired, blind workmen hang red lanterns out 

At sundown, 

I, for one, 

Quite drunken-eyed stroll up the dusk-blue street 

Strewn with Aladdin's rubies. . . . 



:)!) 



.ii^fi] 



Mountain-dream. 

I SEE. ... 
(Having once seen the unforgettable) 

I see chasms swimming in mountain-light, 

Rocks, red and white, columns and domes and arches; 

Golden-buff shoulders of near peaks, 

White dazzle of far ones . . . 

Sheets of purple foam upon seas of blowing green ; 

Fluttering, glistening cotton-woods edging the pebbly glit- 
ter of arroyos ; 

Hay-stacks — golden bubbles upon high, still seas of bright 
stubble ; 

Little cedars scrambling upon the boulders to plant their 
ragged, windy banners; 

The blue, blue, incredible blue of mountain-waters . . . 

God's dream spread out above me, 

His playthings strewn at my feet. . . . 

And here I stay under fatherly trees who indulgently tell 
me 

They are near to the sky as any. 

And tag after drawling red roads that smile at my high- 
flown fancies. 

As they saunter along with their hands in their pockets, 

Thinking that, maybe, day after tomorrow, 

They will take a look at the crops from the top of the 
next little hill. 



[ 56 ] 



A Flock of Birds. 

I— A BLUEBIRD 

NOHOD"^' has ever toKl how a hhichird sinps. 
It is like a butterfly uhi^perinj; secrets to a pear- 
blossom ; 

It is like the elf-hiph blades in the oat-field telling each 
other how it feels to he up ; 

It is like the voice of a brook where it steps over a stone; 

It is like a happy thought talking; 

It is like the taste of sprinj^-water ; 

It is like the brown plee of the plougheil pround. 

Nobody has ever been able to tell how a bluebird sings, 

And neither am I. 



II—DOJ'ES 

CHILDRF.N like doves because of their sickle-wings, 
With whistles under them. 
Men like them for their gentle, still, grey manners — 
They are never ruffled, like women. 
Old people like doves because of their haunted voices: 
They understand what they mean. 
God likes doves because they are doves: 
Thev mourn softlv. 



HI— THE If'REX 

[IK u Ten's mir 
X Hut it is a charming tail. 
Ami a brisk and whirring mind. 

[ 57 1 



Once I caught a wren standing on tiptoe, peeking Into my 

room. 
I should have been shocked at such conduct in a thrush, 
But I didn't mind it In a wren. 



IV— THE WOOD-THRUSH, OR BELL-BIRD 

THE thrush knows a secret. 
He knows why we came here, 
And why we shouldn't mind dying. 
He knows how the earth would look If you saw it from a 

star. 
In winter he goes to heaven. 
And yet, every spring, 
He Is just as pleased to see the first bluet, 
And he takes just as good care of his children, 
As if he didn't know anything else ; 
And I think cut-worms taste just as good to him 
As they do to the wicked jay. 



V—THE JAY 

FOR the jay, you know, goes to the other place 
Every Friday. 
There he eats little singers in their speckled eggs, 
And fireflies with their lights on. 
And slim, green, boneless little lizards, 
All day long. 
Raw. 

I can fancy their Innocent tails sticking out of his mouth 
When he swaggers up to my respectable food-shelf, 
And helps himself contemptuously, 

[ 58 ] 



To show me that the vaunted crumbs of virtue 
Are a mere appetizer to the hold and bad. 
I don't siTguc with him: 
I just love the good birds best. 



VI— THE CARDISAL ASD HIS LADY 

THE redbird is the core of fire at the heart of my still 
living; 
And his little lady is the soft ashes covering the half-seen 
embers. 



59 



Cocoons. 
I 

SCORN is a scourge : 
I need the scourge for myself. 
Love is a key : 

Except it open the one low door, 
I must stay in my cell with my scourge. 



II 

I HAVE fought for my triumph 
Bitterly and long, 
And I would have fought to the death 
For my soul's sake and yours. 

But now that it is won — 

See, here is my sword : 

Take it away — I do not like to look at it. 

Let us play you are the conqueror. 



Ill 

OUT into a green backyard came a woman in a blue 
apron 
Carrying yellow meal in a bright tin pail. 
The chickens came running ; 

And those little hungry sparrows that are my thoughts, 
All day teasing and quarrelling, 
Settled down on the grass among the plump flock, 
Greedy and pleased. 

[ 60 ] 



IV 

I NEVER knew a farmer who scolded the bluebirds 
For thinking the fence-posts were made for them: 
And I jr^iess God will not be offended 
If my heart builds its nest in His fence-post. 



[ 6i ] 



Garrets for Poets. 

I FOUND a royal moth half-way out of his chrysalis, 
Powerless to go further. 
I broke the hard, brittle shell with my fingers — too late. 
His crumpled wings were gorgeous, 
But they would not fly. 

The limitations of a chrysalis are the strength of a cater- 
pillar ; 

They help him to concentrate his mind on wings. 

But when it comes to emerging. 

Every caterpillar should arrange to be prompt and 
lucky — 

If he wants to soar. 



[ 62 ] 



Dressmaker. 

'*'\7" ES, plain things do last longer — 

X Straight lines always look stylish, somehow 
She knelt at my feet, hanging a skirt. 
Her mouth full of pins. 
Her tired face caught a faint light 
As she groped for the More behintl her words: 
A Thought had touched her soul; 
She was a timiil, rustic priestess 
Of Art. 

And I, who had gone in drooping, 

Came out with a high head: 

"Aha I" I said to the housetops, 

"Plain things do last longer — 

Straight lines will always be stylish as trees." 



1 63 



Tools. 



WE found ready to our hands in the beginning 
A trowel and a knife : 
I have kept them both. 

You throw away the knife, and call the throwing, 
Courage ; 

I flinch, but I use it, 
And call the using. Choice. 
I think I was given so terrible a tool 
Because it was needed. 

One can tell the difference by looking at our gardens. 

God knows which is the better : 

For the passer-by I suppose it's a matter of taste. 



[ 64 ] 



No Respecter of Persons. 

WHY, God may even po to church 
And listen to the hymns and prayers, 
Just as he walks amon^ the corn 
And hreathes its homelv, incensed airs; 



And those adventurers of God's — 
His rajiped, bitter, rebel clan — 
Forget He sometimes walks beside 
A comfortable righteous man. 



65 



Full Moon before Dark. 

DELICATE as a flower of silk, 
A blown balloon of luminous shadow, 
The moon, a pale-gold bubble. 
Floats just above the trees. 

If It were my bubble, the Methodist steeple would prick it. 
But nothing can prick God's bubble — 
Not even a church-spire. 



[ 66] 



The Lord Speaks from the 
Bci?iks of the Stream. 

GOD said to tlic Puritan 
As He stood on the bank of His river, 
"I told you to swim to mc: 
"^'ou buildcd a bridge of stone 
To bring back the Soul to the Giver. 
Your timorous, dry-shod plan 
Was well enough in its way, 
But you wrestled and toiled alone, 
And your work was heavier far, 
And now you will have to stay 
On the bank till you learn to play — 
Old and stiff as you are." 

God said to the drowning; Sinner, 
"I told you to swim to me. 
But you played and played in the stream, 
And you stayed and stayed in the stream, 
And you laughed at the ones who said 
\'ou might stay in the water too long. 
And now you are cramped and cold. 
And you will go down in the stream. 
And then, fished out of the slime, 
I must leave you to air and dry. 
Wasting eternal time, 
Hung on a thorn, to sigh 
While measureless years go by." 

God called to the Swimmer-with-Glee, 
God called to the Laden-and- Weary, 

[ 67 ] ' 



"Swim to me, swim to me ! 

Bring back the Gift to the Giver ! 

Dear, 

I am a shady Tree 

For those who rest from the River. 



[ 68 ] 



llircc Small Poems. 



TO GET If ISDOM 

I WILL spread out my mind 
As the wind spreads the skies 
I will make my heart Argus, 
Full of love's eyes: 
So shall I jjrow 
Ah\^mall\ wise. 



MEEKNESS AND PRIDE 

MEEKNESS and Pride 
Are fruits of one tree: 
Eat of them hoth 
For mastery : 
Take one of Pride — 
Of the other, three. 



COURAGE 

COURAGE is armor 
A blind man wears; 
The calloused scar 
Of outlived despairs: 
Courajze is Fear 
That has said its prayers. 



69 



Not in the TVhirlwind. 

Do I speak soft and little, 
Do I offer you a drop of honey in a bent brown 
leaf? 
Yet I, too, have been rent by the whirlwind ; 
I have lain trembling under its bellowings, 
I have endured its fangs, 

I have heard it hiss and groan, "Bitterness, bitterness!" 
But all I have left. 
After its searchings and its rendings. 
May be told in a soft voice 
And is sweet — 
Sweet, 
Like a drop of thick honey in a bent brown leaf. 



[ 70 ] 



Vanity. 



IKNC^W wlu ladles dress themselves 
In silky sheens and peacock dyes: 
They hush their hunpry little souls 
And feed them throu^^h their snatcliing eyes. 

I know why ladies mince and strut 
And wrap themselves in mimic state : 
Despairing prisoners of the world, 
Their hearts are hungry to be great. 



Songs from a Still Place. 



I— THE WALL OF TEARS 

PAIN is a house of glass 
High on a stony hill ; 
Over it pours the rain, 
Spraying from roof and sill. 

It is filled with a curious light, 
And the Soul says, peering out, 
"Were it not for my wall of tears, 
I could see what God is about!" 



11— THE PLAITED WREATH 

I'VE made my days into a wreath, 
Since I've no other crown. 
And no one sees, or calls me proud 
As I go up and down. 

For it is woven of three strands 
To wear through rain and sun : 
One, agony; one, ecstasy — 
And hidden peace is one. 



HI— BEADS 

HOW I have scrambled for my beads! 
And oh, what anxious care 
To pick them up, and sort them out, 
And braid them in my hair ! 

[ 72 ] 



Rubies, and heads of amethyst, 
Gold hkc a bahy's curl, 
And heavy beads of ebony, 
And pale ones, of dead pearl. 

Why did I take so long to learn 
(And how my finpers bled!) 
This simple way of strin^inp: them 
Upon a silver thread ? 



ir— PEACE 

HIDF a seed under a rock, 
Water the rock with tears; 
So may you pick the flower 
After a hundred years. 

Fall on the sword of God — 
See that it pierce you through : 
Out of that wet, red stalk 
The (lower will blossom, too. 



j'—GinXG 

I SAT upon a stone alone, 
Hunj^rw and cold, and dumb; 
Ciod's ravens had forpotten me, 
My wallet held no crumb. 

Then one came toilinj2: up the rocks 
Seekinp my bruited store: 
I spread a banquet for us both — 
There was enough and more! 

[ 73 ] 



VI— FREE 

UP on God's window-sill, 
Carolling high and shrill, 
Shaken with ecstasy, 
There clung my spirit — free ! 

God showed His glorious Head- 
Singing, to Him she said, 
"Who was it did me wrong ? 
Why was I caged so long. 
Tangled in wires and strings, 
Under the stars?" 

''Birdling, I made the wings — 
You made the bars." 



[ 74 ] 



Orders. 

SHE is wise, the Ancient Mother, 
Her ways are not our ways: 
We cannot circumscribe her 
Though we watch her all our days. 

On each of her questioning children 
She presses a different will : 
To one she says, "Keep busy!" 
To one she says, "Keep still !" 

She said to me, "AV^ait and listen: 
I have plenty to drive and do — 
But, once in a while, when you are sure. 
Speak out a word or two!" 



/:> 



One Morning in Gyara. 

Says Epfctetus, ''And where wilt Thou have me to be? 
At Rome or Athens? Only remember me there!" And 
again, "If you are in Gyara ... be intent on this: how 
he that lives in Gyara may live in Gyara like a man of 
spirit." 

Gyara was an island in the Aegean, used as a place of 
banishment. 

ONE morning in Gyara 
My Soul shook me awake: 
"Then will you fight no battle, 
Do nothing for my sake? 

"My plumes are dull with drooping 

In the same maple's shade: 

The very air is furrowed 

With paths my wings have made." 

That morning in Gyara 
She turned her sullen head 
And Socrates and Jesus 
Were standing by our bed. 

Under the new-leaved maples . 
Lord Buddha paced in brown, 
And by his side the wise Slave 
Went limping up and down. 

My Soul bent like a sapling 
Caught in a sudden gust : 
With wings her shamed face veiling 
She bowed her in the dust ; 

[ 76 ] 



For thronp;inp: house and dooryard 
Of us who ill deserve, 
Were jjuests she had invited 
And then torpot to serve ! 

Rainbows of far-caupht wonder 
From all their j^arments rayed: 
Round them the dooryard maples 
Rippled like seas of jade. 

Uprisen in G>ara, 
Barefoot, rapt and whole, 
She went about amon;^ them, 
Bearinjx her plate and bowl ; 

For they had come from farther 
Than Athens is, or Rome, 
That morninc:, to Gyara, 
To find my Soul at home. 



77 



The Cripple. 



A BIRD came hopping on my shelf 
With one good foot — a stump the other ; 
It hurt my heart to see so maimed 
A feathered brother. 

Yet when he spread his wings to go 
He seemed to launch himself with laughter, 
As though to shame my sorry thoughts 
That fluttered after ; 

For though he could not perch so well, 
Nor strut, nor swagger any longer, 
His wings were strong as any bird's — 
Or were they stronger ? 



[ 78 ] 



Pronouns. 



'^plir Lord said, 

1 "Say. '\Vc'"; 

Hut I shook my head, 

Hid my hands tight behind my hack, and said. 
Stubbornly, 
"I." 

The Lord said, 

"Say, 'We' " ; 

But I looked upon them, primy and all awry. 

Myself in all those twisted sliapes? Ah, no! 

Distastefully I turned my head away. 

Persisting, 

"They." 

Hie Lord said, 

••Sav, 'We' " ; 

And L 

At last. 

Richer by a hoard 

Of years 

And tears. 

Looked in their eyes and found the heavy word 

That bent my neck and bowed my head : 

Like a shamed schoolboy then I mumbled low, 

"We. 

Lord." 



79 1 



Root and Flower. 

PAIN is the rich, dark loam 
Where my roots thrust and grope, 
Breaking their stubborn foot, 
Fighting for scope ; 

But up in the delicate air 
That wraps leaf and bark, 
Joy, like a foam of flowers. 
Bursts from the dark. 



80 ] 



IriitiatioTL 



Now God has given mc 
The sureness of a tree : 
My heart Hows out of my breast 
Into a tree, for rest. 

Still must I fall like water 

Shattered in spray ; 

Still must I ^o as the wind goes 

PVelinp: her way ; 

Still, as a fire eat upward 

Through smothering pain; 

Still break and yield as a flower breaks 

In beating rain: 

But when I must have rest 
My heart flows out of my breast, 
Slips out of herself, is free. 
At last God gives to me 
The wisdom of a tree. 



[ «■ 1 



JVinter Dusk. 

THE black pines, and the pale-gold moon, 
And the cold blue sky. 
And the drumming whir of small hid wings 
In the bush close by ; 

And the sober rose in the leaden sheen 
Of the sedgy lake — 
This beauty feeds and heals my heart 
It used to break. 

This joy that was a restless pang, 
Pain-edged, sword-bright. 
Now wraps me in stern tenderness. 
Secure delight. 

I have come home to the heart of things. 
Made friends with pain. 
And God has given me sevenfold 
My joy again. 



[ 82 



Achw^uolechnicnt. 

o 

E\ KR^ cvcninp now, for years, 
As I have paineil the top of the hill, 
'I'hrce cedars have signalled me from across the valley. 

I owe them a poem. 

Companionable p^reen angels, 
Ambassadors of loveliness, 
Princes in willing exile, 

Telling familiarly of the burning aloofness of beauty 
To all who will stop to hear — 
I kneel at your feet! 
Steadfast ardors, 
Too wise for importunity. 
Noble and negligent — 

Touch me with the edges of your ragged mantles; 
Give me of your way-worn, windy grace; 
Shed from your homely, aromatic wings upon me 
Healing and potency: 
Accept my salute. 



83 



Anniversary in November. 

I~BIRTHDAY 

THIS is her day. For, years ago, 
On such a bannered day as this — 
Dogwood and sumach flaming so — 
She died. I cannot go and kiss 

Her forehead, as on birthdays gone ; 
She is a birth ahead of me. 
Meantime, she knows I keep this one — 
This door of Time where she went free. 

I, ch'nging to the windy sill, 
She, stooping from the winged air, 
Meet on this ledge of love's high will — 
Her birthday, that she lets me share. 



11— THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS 

YOUR day has come again. Far overhead, 
Cross-stitched in wavering lines against the sky, 
Or gleaming buff and silver, wild and high. 
The geese slip by like phantoms, phantom-led. 
The air is blue as incense-smoke; flame-red 
The little maples, idly dreaming by, 
Trail their lit lanterns in the lake — and I 
Dream of 3^our life among the living Dead. 

Through the cathedral-windows of the year 
Once more the still November sunlight streams, 

[ 84 ] 



And all my World — so low and dim and dear! — 
Turns like a maple-leaf to catch the gleams 
That tremble down from Yours— it hangs so near, 
Clearer than waking, richer than old dreams. 



Ill— MIGRANTS 

^r^HK wild, great birds, like disembodied Souls, 
X Haughty with freedom, will not stoop to me, 
For all my yearning; but the little ones 
Flash for my joy through every bush and tree. 

I wonder if the strong-wingeil spirits go 
Swiftly, like that, beyond our farthest scope. 
While smaller ones and gentler, stop and stir 
The trees about us with their love and hope? 



Il'—ALL SAiyrS' DAY 

^V^ HIS is my All Saints' Day. I think you come, 

X Parting the broidered curtains of the year, 
And say to Those whom you have brought from Home, 
Softly, '*Hush, look! She knows that we are here." 

The woods are lovely as your world must be, 
Kindled by delicate, breath-shaken pyres 
To haunted light; angelic drapery 
Floats in the smoke above the maple-fires. 

The air is tranced with beauty ; beauty rained 
Just now. although the black-gum hardly stirred; 
My plain, white hours are shaken, beauty-stained: 
I wait and listen,— and I hear your Word. 
[ 85 1 



I 



Clear Hour. 

HAVE been the wasted spray, the flying, fretted foam ; 
Now I'll be the blue pool where water is at home. 



I have been the haggard cloud, wind-driven like white 

dust: 
Now I'll be the smooth sky the littlest star may trust. 

And I have been a free bird, to follow my own needs: 
Now in the cage of God's love, the stars are golden seeds. 



[ 86] 



The HoNSCvcifc: J J Inter 
Afternoon. 

THE children's cat upon tlic window-sill, 
The little sounds that make the house so still, 

That old brown huntin;^-hat upon the rack, 
I give away, and John keeps getting back. 

The jonquil blooming in the yellow bowl— 
I well believe that cacli one has a soul, 

Each, body to some delicate, rich dream, 
As my blue tea-pot to its perfumed steam. 

"The shadows of the angels' houses"— so 
Said William Blake of houses here below, 

And if, at last, they'd set upon my grave, 

(As once they furnished forth the red-skinned brave.) 

My old blue tea-pot, and a bowl like this, 
I think I'd sooner take root in new bliss, 

And not come dreaming back, a happy fool, 

To wait, like this, till Johnny comes from school. 



87 



Sky-colors. 



I—BLVE AND SILVER 

THE clouds are flying, white horse-tails, 
The fierce little moon is a silver gadfly, 
The wind is a whistling silver whip : 
Gallop, gallop, wild white stallions, 
Whinnying silverly, 
Across the cold blue valleys, 
Over the crystal hills! 

II—ROSE AND GREY 

FIERY roses hang from the grey cloud-bushes, 
Loosely, ready to shatter — 
Great flame-roses above the cold earth. 
I hold my breath lest the sharp black branches of the old 

oak 
Catch them and tear them. 
Shake and scatter their ragged petals. 
And shorten by a heart-beat 
Their unseasonable blooming. 

HI— PALE PINK AND PRIMROSE 

ON a knoll in the old fallow field. 
Dressed in the tawny-grey of dead grasses, 
Three little pines in short skirts stand together, 
Like little girls in party-dresses; 
While, to make them clap their hands. 
The clouds beyond them prink and pencil themselves with 

delicate fairy tints, 
Such as little girls love. 

[ 88 ] 



IV— CLEAR GOLD 

THE hem of the grey Dusk is of cmhcr-rcd velvet; 
The bare trees brush aj^ainst it h'ke thin black 
fcatliers; 
The windows of the houses are square pendants of topaz 
Muffled in veils of blue; 

Ami hi^h above this blending of dim splendors — 
A flower for Her hair — 

The bright bent moon sprays a delicate, raying light, 
Like the heart of a water-lily, clear gold. 



89 



Soft Rain. 



THERE is room for ladles in a world that holds soft 
rain, 
For delicate, undefended beauty 
And gentleness. 

There is room for slender young things, virgin-wistful, 
With minds like bridal veils; 
There is room for brittle old-lady minds 
That function like the tinkling of tea-cups. 
We have been too long blurry with rain. 
They say. 

And they are doubtless right: 

It is the hour for biting wind and stabbing sunshine. 
But I have walked in the soft rain today; 
I have seen the mist 

Sifting through the black mantilla of the bare elm ; 
There was in it eternal beauty — 
It wrapped my heart in peace. 
And it was shown unto me 
That there will always be room for ladies — a little 

room — 
In a world that wearies, sometimes, 
Of its hausfrau harvest-zeal for corn and squashes, 
Of the feminist fury of its Wind- Valkyries ; 
That lapses, even, 

From its male salt and sleet and thunder 
Into moods of rain, 
Soft rain. 
And mist. 



[ 90 ] 



The Mirrored Bird 



THE bird that flies under the watcr- 
() lustrous breast and winj:^! — 
The bird that skims under the water, 
I wonder, does it sing? 

The bird that slips under the ripple — 

gleaming wing and breast ! — 
The flitter under the ripple, 

1 wonder, does it nest? 

If I could find one nesting. 
If I could hear one sing. 
In the thickets under the ripple 
That spreads in a silver ring, 

I might surprise the secret, 
The music never heard — 
Trilling under the water 
In the throat of the mirrored bird. 



91 



If My Breath Is Taken. 



IF there be another world 
Lovelier than this, 
I hope that I'll know better 
What to do with bliss, 

For now I stand here dripping 
Like an April tree, 
With rivulets of beauty 
Trickling off from me ! 

Now the full moon riding high 
Drenches me with gold, 
Heaps my greedy senses 
With more than they can hold ; 

If my breath is taken 

By this beauty, even — 

How shall my naked spirit breast 

The crystal floods of heaven ? 



[92 ] 



Isabels. 



I THINK I'll be going— 
A creature that sings 
Can't wait for the labels 
To stick to her wings! 

If it's worth your while, catch me- 
(At least, if >ou're able: 
Aristides himself 
Was no match for a label). 



93 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



tr'niBiiifiirii 



I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ! 

018 604 574 9 §, 



